The Project

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Context

The Port of Cagliari represents the main Sardinian logistic asset. It is located in the Mediterranean along the ideal route between Suez and Gibraltar, linking up to 82 destinations all over the world, and representing the ideal gate to Northern Africa. The port consists of two main parts: the historic port, which is in the heart of the city center, located only 100 meters from the main intermodal node of the city, where the bus and railways stations are placed, and the industrial port, about four kilometers away from the city.
The Cagliari-Elmas airport is about eight kilometers away from this node. The industrial port is well structured: the available quay is 1500 meters long, allowing the mooring of vessels with a water draft up to 18 meters. It has a turning basin of 600 meters, 24.000 TEUs of stacking capacity yard area and it is equipped with about 1000 reefer plugs for refrigerated containers; it also has a wide available area for further expansion, of which more than 50 hectares in an advanced stage of refactoring to accommodate the customs free zone.

Future development plans for the Port of Cagliari consist in a significant reorganisation of all the port system in order to cope with the forthcoming increase of traffic for both goods (in the industrial Port) and passengers (in the historic Port). On one hand these changes will have considerable consequences in improving the mid-range productive activities; on the other hand, they will call for a high effort in logistic and mobility planning of the whole metropolitan area of Cagliari.
The changes expected can be summarised as follows:

  • Transhipment increment in the industrial Port up to 3.5 million of TEU (while at present they are 600.000);
  • Growing in the boarding of marble extracted in Sardinia bound for Asian and North American markets (about 150.000 TEU);
  • Ro-Ro and Ro-Pax traffic rising up to 600 semitrailer per day, involving the urban traffic and concentrated into a short period of time;
  • The set-up of a Home-Port dedicated to the big cruise ships, able to board from 3000 to 5000 passengers weekly, who will need to move through the corridor between the port and the airport;
  • Many inter-port activities which will involve the Home-Port as well (boarding on cruise ships having a different Home-Port);
  • Organization of proper spaces to place materials and goods bound for North Africa, located not only inside the port area but also in the nearby industrial area;
  • Free customs zone related outlook;

CagliariPort2020

CagliariPort2020 project aims to build a system able to effectively cope with the forthcoming
increase in vehicles, goods and passengers, by the development of a general methodology for managing the interface between the city and the Port system in terms of logistic hubs, including both the issues related to the movement within the port area as well as the issues related to passengers and goods flows – inward and outbound – throughout the city gateways. According to this vision, CagliariPort2020 aims at solving the problems of integration of the three main hubs: the metropolitan area of Cagliari, the industrial port (goods), the historic port (passengers).


With this purpose CagliariPort2020 envisages a strict collaboration with local stakeholders, in particular with the Cagliari Municipality and the Authority of the Port, who have already expressed their commitment at the time of the project submission. During the project activities the following stakeholders will be actively involved:

  • the Department of Tourism of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia;
  • Sogaer, the Cagliari-Elmas airport concessionary;
  • the logistic operator Grandi Trasporti Marittimi;
  • the Chamber of Commerce of Cagliari;
  • the Association of the South-Sardinian Manufacturers (Confindustria della Sardegna Meridionale);